Lee v. State

Appeal
from the Criminal Court for Shelby County No. 97-01964 John
W. Campbell, Judge.

The
Defendant, Marcus Deangelo Lee, pleaded guilty in 1997 to
escape from felony incarceration, and the trial court
sentenced him to one year and ordered that his sentence run
consecutively to a three-year sentence the Defendant received
for drug-related and firearm convictions in 1995. Since that
time, the Defendant has been arrested and convicted on other
charges unrelated to this case. Almost seventeen years later,
the Defendant filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence
pursuant to Tennessee Rule of Criminal Procedure 36.1 with
regard to jail credits for his 1997 felony escape conviction.
The trial court summarily dismissed the motion, and the
Defendant appeals. On appeal, he contends that the trial
court erred when it summarily dismissed his motion because
the trial court improperly amended his judgment to reflect
103 days of jail credit, which he argues resulted in his
sentences running concurrently rather than consecutively as
mandated by statute. We affirm the trial court's
judgment.

Robert
W. Wedemeyer, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in
which Thomas T. Woodall, P.J., and Norma McGee Ogle, J.,
joined.

OPINION

ROBERT
W. WEDEMEYER, JUDGE.

I.
Facts

This
case arises from the Defendant's escape from
incarceration in 1997. The Defendant has been before this
court on nine previous occasions and has been before a
federal appellate court numerous other times, never obtaining
the relief he sought and, on occasion, having his appeal
dismissed because it was not filed in good faith. Because the
procedural history is so complex, we will only summarize it
as it relates to our holding.

The
Defendant filed his motion to correct an illegal judgment
entered on May 30, 1997, as amended on September 3, 1998.
That judgment of conviction shows that the Defendant pleaded
guilty to felony escape from an institution where he was
incarcerated serving time for felony drug related and firearm
offenses committed in 1995. The trial court sentenced him as
a Range I Offender, to one year in the workhouse. The
Defendant asserted in his motion to correct the judgment
that, as a part of his felony escape plea agreement, the
"state promised [him] . . . a 1 year sentence at 30%,
with 103 days jail credit in exchange for his admission of
guilt." The Defendant asserted that, after he was
incarcerated, he noticed that his judgment of conviction did
not reflect the jail credit. He notified his defense counsel,
and ultimately an amended judgment was issued in September
1998 showing the jail credit.

In the
Defendant's Rule 36.1 motion currently before us, filed
some seventeen years later, he now asserts that the trial
court improperly granted him the 103 days of jail credit
because the Court "effectively ran [his] felony escape
sentence concurrent with his Sale of Controlled Substance
offense when it awarded him 103 days jail credit that was
promised to him by the State, in direct contravention of
T.C.A. 39-16-605(c)."

The
trial court summarily dismissed his petition, and the
Defendant filed an appeal.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;II.
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